Political insiders reveal federal election campaign’s biggest load of BS

We’ve heard a lot of hot air this campaign. So how do you sort the fact from the spin? Political insiders have revealed the lines from our pollies that are total rubbish.

ANALYSIS

We’ve done it, Australia. We’ve made it to polling day.

Millions of voters will fill booths across the country, after an unrelenting and uninspiring marathon six-week election campaign from both major parties.

If you – like myself – have been consuming as much political content as possible, you’d have heard a lot of jargon and cliché-driven messaging. On Friday, Labor’s campaign spokesperson Jason Clare even admitted to being told he has had “more zingers than KFC”.

But if the daily press conferences and shouty leaders’ debates made you tune out more than in, it can be hard to decipher the fact from the spin.

So, we’ve done it for you. I sat down with some of the country’s top political insiders to investigate the biggest pieces of bullsh*t sprouted from both major party’s campaigns.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was forced to defend his endorsement of Liberal candidate Katherine Deves after she appeared to walk back her apology to the trans community. Picture: Jason Edwards

According to Sky News presenter, Laura Jayes, “When politicians start talking about people’s genitals, you know you’re not in great territory.”

For the AM Agenda host, the controversy stirred from a series of now-deleted transphobic tweets from Warringah’s captain’s pick, Liberal candidate Katherine Deves, has been particularly on the nose.

“The Katherine Deves trans issue is not an issue,” Jayes said.

“We’re talking about 1200 trans people in Australia – a fraction of those perhaps thinking about gender reassignment surgery. It’s never happened for an adolescent in Australia.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was forced to defend his endorsement of Ms Deves again on May 10 after she appeared to walk back her apology to the trans community for offensive posts that called gender reassignment surgery “mutilation”.

Ms Deves continues to insist that is the correct “medico-legal term”. Though Mr Morrison admitted he would not use that phrase, he did say “gender reversal surgery for young adolescents” was a “very significant” and “serious” issue.

Jayes wants politicians to stay out of any conversation about genitals.

“We don’t want them talking about their own, let alone other people’s,” she said.

Sky News presenter Laura Jayes said Ms Deves’ (pictured) trans issue was not an issue. Picture: Katherine Deves/Facebook

As for the biggest rubbish one of the country’s leading political journalists has heard, it’s all about integrity.

“Scott Morrison has said that it’s not a broken promise that he hasn’t delivered an independent commission against corruption because it became apparent that he couldn’t get it through parliament. I mean, he hasn’t even tried,”news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden said.

“He put it up, they didn’t seem like they were going to agree with exactly his model and so he didn’t even try to negotiate the amendments, so I think there are some areas in that regard that he’s been a little cute about, shall we say.”

But for Maiden, it hasn’t just been the PM spinning rubbish into policy justifications and frameworks.

“It is galling to listen to Anthony Albanese suggest that he supports boat turnbacks,” she said.

“This is a guy that has spent a lifetime arguing against this in the Rudd-Gillard years. He actually got up in 2015 and put his hand up against it at the ALP conference, so I have no doubt in my mind that that’s just political expediency.

“He just wants to win an election, so suddenly all of his beliefs and things that he had when he was being a Left warrior have kind of gone out the window.”

News.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden said it is galling to listen to Anthony Albanese suggest that he supports boat turnbacks. Picture: Sam Ruttyn.

One of the biggest policy battlegrounds this election is climate action. However, both major parties have similar commitments, each vowing to hit net zero emissions by 2050.

While Labor’s plan to tackle climate change is more ambitious – a 43 per cent emissions target by 2030 – the Coalition has been forced to double-down on its messaging, after Queensland National Senator Matt Canavan threw an oil rag among the solar panels during the third week of the campaign.

“The net-zero thing is all sort of dead anyway ... it’s all over,” Senator Canavan said during a TV interview.

“That is economically stupid,” financial analyst Evan Lucas said.

“And it also shows that you’re using what is actually quite an inefficient energy producer. Coal’s not great. I mean, it’s simple and cheap right now because the infrastructure is built. But economically, it’s actually really, really inefficient in the long term. And that needs to be pointed out.

“So, on the economics, that’s the biggest bullsh*t.”

So that’s what some of the experts believe is the biggest bullsh*t served up during the campaign. If you hear any of those political lines repeated in the dying days of the campaign, you’ll know to treat them with some scepticism.

Happy voting!

Georgie Tunny is a presenter, news addict and proud Taylor Swift fan. You can stream her updates daily on Flash, a streaming service that brings together more than 25 news channels in one place. New to Flash? Try one month free. Offer ends October 31, 2022

Originally published as Political insiders reveal federal election campaign’s biggest load of BS